I have always enjoyed
listening to the complete Swan Lake
Ballet as a single piece of music, a
very long symphony. Ah, what is a symphony?
"Symphonies" have been written
for solo organ and solo piano. Mahler
declined to number his actual ninth
symphony, and Rimsky-Korsakov, Rachmaninov,
and Szymanowski all declined to number
their fourth symphonies, although in
the latter case nobody has ever attempted
to explain why. Is Mussorgskyís "Pictures
from an Exhibition" a Symphony?
The only definition that holds water
these days is: "A lengthy and important
orchestral work in several sections."
We have one movement symphonies, and
Alan Hovhanessís "St. Vartan Symphony"
is made up of 24 movements, most of
them in a dance format. So is Tchaikovskyís
Opus 20 a symphony in 29 movements?

I say so. Tchaikovsky
knew it was his masterpiece and died
assuming it would never be appreciated.
It is one of four works written within
five years of each other in four different
European countries with the same story
ó Carmen, Götterdämmerung,
and Aïda are the others.
As if to underscore the connection,
Tchaikovskyís hero is named Siegfried.
All these works deal with lovers whose
love is forbidden by convention or patriotism
or mythic obligations, or what have
you. And in the end everybody dies,
asserting that individuals will never
"be sensible" and give up
their rights to self-expression, but
will go to death defiant. In all of
these works the protagonists are momentarily
deceived by magic and/or seduction and
it is this which leads to their ultimate
destruction. Together these works added
up to a powerful condemnation of the
oppression of the individual by rigid
social convention and were the artistic
manifestation of social and political
forces for change that were not significantly
manifest until nearly fifty years later.
After Carmen, Aïda,
and the completed Ring, opera
was never the same. And most people
have never seen and cannot name a ballet
that predates Swan Lake*.

Parts of the work,
including the famous violin solos, were
reworked by Tchaikovsky from earlier
works, all tragic fantasy love stories
like Romeo and Juliet and Ondine,
but the sequence of dances, diverse
as they are, arranged in an extremely
effective dramatic sequence, accumulates
to an overwhelming conclusion. From
its premier the work has been denounced
by dancers and choreographers as being
"too symphonic." Of course
it is ó itís a music drama/choreographic
poem. The various dances seem to be
entirely distinct original tunes, with
the whole held together by the "fate"
motif, a musical phrase that tries to
rise, seems to pound against a barrier,
then falls. A similar musical tone painting
is found in the fate theme from Vaughan
Williams Antarctic Symphony,
but Vaughan Williams was not a believer
so the end is not a transfiguration,
but a melting away into the flow of
natural processes. Tchaikovskyís message
is that somehow, somewhere, it will
all work out for the best, that love
will prove the more powerful of forces
ó an adolescent message, but one we
do well to be reminded of.

Frederick Ashton provided
a choreography that gives happy ending
with Rothbart dead and the lovers alive,
and no change in the music.

All three of the featured
complete recordings use the same "complete"
score which was at one time controversial
but is now obviously routine.

My source gives 1967
as the date of this recording which
I have trouble believing. The earlier
recording of Swan Lake excerpts
that Abravanel did for Westminster is
dated 1958, as shown on the orchestraís
website discography page. 1967 would
be just too early for this level of
sophistication in surround sound, unless
it was originally a multi-track recording
and all the separate tracks were preserved
to be re-mixed for this release, and
this must be the case.

The way you tell a
good surround-sound recording is not
just that you can hear the echo off
the back wall of the auditorium. Itís
that you can see not only the width
of the orchestra from side to side,
but also the depth. And when
you close your eyes you cannot tell
where the speakers are no matter how
you move your head, but you can tell
where each one of the instruments is,
side to side, front to back. I have
been listening to these new Silverline
releases looking for a REAL multi-channel
recording and I have finally found it.
This gorgeous recording fills your music
room with sound sources. My main reservation
is that Abravanelís bass drum is a tenor,
not a basso profundo, but I can understand
Abravanelís fastidiousness: Tchaikovsky
did rather over-do the bass drum in
this score. But you may want to turn
up your bass control a little for this
disk.

In case you were curious
as was I why Abravanelís biographical
sketches omit the war [WWII] years,
rest assured that he was in New York
the whole time, after he completed a
tour of Australia in 1934 with the British
National Opera Company. His secret,
unremarked-upon sin was conducting the
premiers of Broadway musicals for his
friend and teacher Kurt Weill, notably
Lady in the Dark, etc. One can
easily understand why in 1947 he was
ready to move to Salt Lake City; in
1947 it was a very small town
ó I know, I was there.

Even though in 1877,
at 36, in his Opus 20, Tchaikovsky created
his masterpiece, I donít mean to say
it was all downhill for him from there
on, but the road only occasionally climbed
so high, and never again with the raging
swagger of youth. Sleeping Beauty,
generally considered superior to Swan
Lake, is more polished but also
more extroverted and less heartful.
Obviously, Abravanel agrees with me,
for this recording is his
masterpiece. He has lovingly sculpted
this work and if I donít at first agree
with everything he does, I understand
his motives and will probably eventually
come to agree with his means as I agree
with his results.

In the final analysis,
this performance is just one click below
the absolute top. A little restraint
and nobility are always welcome in Tchaikovsky;
the Previn recording is every bit as
noble with just a little more heart.
Previnís sound in currently available
releases is not as good as Abravanelís,
but the Previn performance was likely
recorded as a four channel master, and
if EMI were to release it on DVD-Audio,
it would give Abravanel some real competition.
Iíll want them both, of course. And
I finally completely understand where
Prokofiev got the idea for the snare
drum he used in the final pas de
deux in his ballet Romeo and
Juliet.

Here is the list of
people who produced this magnificent
disk for us. Stand up and take a bow,
guys!

If you donít have a
surround sound DVD-Audio player, buy
one so you can show it off with this
disk. If you play the disk on your regular
DVD player in surround sound you hear
the same superb surround sound acoustic,
but with reduced dynamic range. If you
opt for the two channel DVD sound and
use your playerís surround sound enhancement,
you get much of the dynamic range back,
but you lose the precision of the surround
sound perspective. But any way you listen
to it, this disk is a magnificent musical
experience.

The cover says the
disk is playable on "all DVD players,"
but I had intermittent difficulty playing
it under Software Cinemaster and DVDX
computer players on my 400 MHz Pentium
II machine.

*OK, Coppélia,
1870; but itís rarely performed complete
even though excerpts are now and then
played in concert, like Beethovenís
Creatures of Prometheus or Gluckís
Don Juan.

Reviews
from previous monthsJoin the mailing list and receive a hyperlinked weekly update on the
discs reviewed. detailsWe welcome feedback on our reviews. Please use the Bulletin
Board
Please paste in the first line of your comments the URL of the review to
which you refer.